Supreme Opens in Brooklyn with Skaters, Stone Island, and Some Ice-Cold Beers

Think Supreme, and you think long lines and teenage boys with cooler-than-thou demeanors. Not so at the opening of Supreme’s first store in Brooklyn last night. Instead, there was almost no crowd, just an intimate gathering of friends and family of the 23-year-old super brand. Perhaps the calmness was a result of the fact that not a single item in the massive store was for sale. That chaos begins today, when Supreme drops a whole new slate of products. Brooklynites, get ready for the lines.

As for the space, it’s plastered with photos on its storefront wall and decorated with the sparse, contemporary-yet-industrial decor found in the other stores of the skatewear behemoth. Unlike its Manhattan counterpart on Lafayette Street, the South Williamsburg locale is sprawling. “You know, we’re not under the assumption that everyone in New York City knows who Supreme is and what Supreme is about. We’re hoping that we definitely broaden the spectrum by opening up a new location in Brooklyn,” said former Supreme brand director and current creative consultant to the label Angelo Baque. “We wanted something that was close enough to the city that wouldn’t be inconvenient for our shoppers coming from Manhattan.”

If today’s drop of Stone Island apparel—“I’m a really big fan of Stone Island,” Baque admits—and a Supreme-branded lockbox isn’t enough to lure Manhattan types to Williamsburg, Supreme’s indoor skate bowl might. The feature, which Baque says is limited to friends and family use, is unique to the Brooklyn and Los Angeles locations. “Because of the size of the Manhattan store, we can’t really cater to that skate-core kid that we want to just to come and hang out. For us, one of the main objectives in getting a bigger space is that we do include a skate element, because at the end of the day, we’re still a skateboarding brand,” said Baque. Still, a skate brand with a hefty insurance bill, we’d imagine. At that question, he just laughed and shrugged. No matter, Mark Gonzales and the other pros in the bowl last night seemed willing to take the risk.